6 Big Challenges Midmarket Organizations May Face With Multi-Cloud Identity And Access Management

Managing multiple IDPs can introduce complexity.

Strata, which provides an identity orchestration platform, shared its findings on what IT leaders are saying are their biggest challenges with multi-cloud identity management in a new report.

Seventy-five percent of organizations now manage two or more identity providers (IDPs), according to The State of Multi-Cloud Identity Survey, conducted by Strata in collaboration with the Cloud Security Alliance. Eleven percent manage five or more IDPs.

The survey results detailed six of the biggest challenges IT leaders said they face with managing multiple IDPs:

• Complexity

Sixty-five percent of those surveyed said that managing multiple IDPs can be complex. Some of the complexity involves onboarding legacy or or-premise apps into cloud IDP platforms. Others cited a lack of in-house experience, and concerns about data migration risks added to the complexity.

• Inconsistent Security Policies

Forty-nine percent of respondents said their organizations struggle with inconsistencies among their security policies.

• Lack Of Interoperability

Forty-three percent lack of interoperability between different identity systems was a pain point.

• Issues With Identity Privilege Management

Another challenge also cited by 43 percent of those surveyed is difficulty with identity privilege management including discovering inactive identities.

• Regulatory Requirements

Thirty-one percent said they had issues with the “maintenance of compliance with regulatory requirements.”

• Costs

Nineteen percent said escalating costs associated with maintaining legacy identity vendors posed a challenge.

Strata and the Cloud Security Alliance offered some guidance to organizations when managing multiple IDPs:

• Close The Visibility Gap

“Organizations must ensure they have the right tools, architecture, and processes in place to gain complete visibility into their identity and access management (IAM) environments,” they advised in the report.

• Modernize And Automate Identity Access Management

Outdated systems and lack of automation can contribute to technical debt and add to system complexity, the report said.

• Strengthen Your Identity Infrastructure

Ensure that “redundant identity services are distributed and resilient across multiple environments” and create failover strategies.